“Oh, there is,” Nola said. She walked over and turned the deadbolt on the door, then put up the Closed sign.

“Lunch time?” Beam asked.

“Already had lunch.”

“Back room?”

“Let’s go see.”

“He’s coming undone,” the police profiler, Helen, was saying in a television interview done outside One Police Plaza. “He’s finding more and more pleasure in his murders, and more and more hell.”

“He’s conflicted?” asked the interviewer, a man six inches shorter than the statuesque Helen.

“I thought I made that clear,” Helen said. “Inner conflict is what started his string of increasingly brutal murders, and inner conflict will destroy him. That’s the way it works with serial killers. The process is already well underway. It’s like acid produced by the soul it’s destroying.”

“That’s very poetic.”

Helen smiled grimly. “I guess it is. What it means is that the killer’s thought process is breaking down. It will eventually lead to his arrest or suicide.”

“He’ll get careless?”

“He’ll take larger and larger risks,” Helen said. “He won’t be able to stop himself.”

“You’re saying he’s going mad?”

“Oh, he’s already quite mad.”

The taped interview with the police profiler was too much to bear. The Justice Killer felt like throwing the remote at the TV. Instead he merely switched channels.

And there was another interview. This time with the intrepid Beam, saying something about Knee High.

Justice listened, turning up the volume.

A few minutes later he sat back, shaking his head.

Released on his own recognizance!

Goddamned judges!

A commercial came on the cable news channel he was watching. A duck, or some other kind of fowl, talking about term insurance. He used the remote to switch to another channel.

There was a photograph of Knee High, a mug shot taken shortly after his arrest. The hash marks and numerals behind him indicated he was five-foot one with his hair combed almost straight up. He wore a cocky, nervous smile, as if made apprehensive yet enjoying his notoriety.

“—released this afternoon,” the newscaster was saying. He was a full-faced man in a gray suit with some kind of pin on the lapel. “The court ruled that it didn’t consider the accused a risk to do public harm or to flee. He is not required to wear an electronic anklet.” The anchorman turned to a guest. “Now, if Martha Stewart—”

Justice switched to another twenty-four-hour news channel. A female anchor with teased red hair was sharing a split screen with the same mug shot of Knee High. They were both smiling.

Why was Knee High smiling minutes after being booked? Advice of counsel? Was he already working toward an insanity plea?

Or perhaps the relief of confession had prompted Knee High’s smile when the mug shot camera had captured his image. Or maybe even then Knee High had understood that not everything was lost. Like so many others before him, he could use the system to his advantage.

Justice full well knew how firmly fate was on his side, how Knee High was being delivered to him. Fate would side with the avenging angel of justice, the divinity of death. Because of Knee High, the Justice Killer had slain an innocent man. That was the very antithesis of what Justice was trying to do. It could undermine his mission.

“Oh, he’s already quite mad.”

What Knee High had done was an abomination. Justice could not let the matter stand, and he would not. That wasn’t madness; it was making a madness right.

The police would strive to protect Knee High, but even with the tightest security there would be lapses, vulnerable moments. Time would pass without incident, and even Knee High might consider himself in danger only from the usual justice delayed.

Delayed forever.

Not this time, little man. Justice hastened, Justice served, Justice pleasured.

Sooner or later, by breath, blade, or bullet, you belong, to me.

59

“This isn’t the usual thing,” Beam said, when Knee High approached him for their meeting in Grand Central Station.

The little man had phoned Beam personally and requested that they speak, and had chosen the place. The shuffling of hundreds of soles and heels was a constant echoing whisper, as if there were secrets in the stone and marble vastness.

“Knee High be short,” Knee High said. He moved over toward a wall where they’d be more or less separated from the throngs of train passengers and tourists. “This the most public place in New York, lotsa people all the time. Hard for anyone to follow Knee High, ’cause he get in amongst the masses and everybody be taller, shield him from prying eyes.”

“That makes sense,” Beam said. “But what I meant is, it’s unusual that a murder suspect who’s out of jail would phone a police detective so they can meet someplace and he can complain about being free.”

Knee High looked astounded. “Free? You call this free? Knee High got cops comin’ out his ass, mornin’ till night.”

“All night, too,” Beam said. “That’s because they’ve been assigned to protect you.”

“Protect Knee High, shit. What they’re hanging around for is a shot at the Justice Killer. You think Knee High don’t know how you guys set up Knee High? Knee High ain’t no fool. Weren’t born yesterday, nor at night, neither.”

Beam wished Knee High weren’t one of those people who habitually referred to themselves in the third person. It gave the impression there might be another Knee High here.

“You want that Justice Killer mother come after Knee High,” said Knee High. “You tell Knee High that ain’t the truth.”

Beam felt no pity. “Whatever position you’re in, you put yourself there,” he said.

“Po-sition? Knee High’s po-sition is bent over, tha’s what.”

“Why did you want to talk to me about it?”

“Knee High wanna be arrested. Then he want you to tell the media in this town, so the Justice mother know and won’t be tryin’ to shoot Knee High.”

“I can’t arrest you,” Beam said. “The law doesn’t work that way. You could sue me.”

“Knee High don’t sue people. Way the law works, it’s s’pose to protect the citizens. Knee High a citizen.”

“Edie Piaf was a citizen until you killed her.”

“So why don’t you arrest Knee High?” He held his hands out, wrists together, as if waiting to be cuffed. “C’mon, do your job an’ put Knee High back where that Justice mother can’t get to him.”

“I can’t do that unless there’s a warrant out for you. You’ll need to speak to a judge.”

“Yeah. Knee High do that next time we be lunchin’ at Four Seasons. Uh-huh. You see that?”

“See what?”

“That big guy in camouflage fatigues, carryin’ an automatic rifle.”

Beam peered across the teeming marble vastness to where Knee High was pointing. “He’s in the military,” Beam said, “part of Homeland Security. They’re stationed throughout Grand Central.”

“How you know what he is? What Knee High see’s a man with a machine gun, might wanna shoot Knee High dead. You know tha’s what he ain’t? Anybody can go rent hisself a soldier suit, get hold of a gun, go walkin’ ’round Grand Central, blast the damn eyeballs outta Knee High ’fore you can stop him.”

Beam knew Knee High had a point, but he wasn’t about to concede it. “I think Knee High’s got a case of the nerves.”

Knee High extended a stubby little leg and kicked the marble wall. Had to hurt his toes. “Nerves? Those cops you say s’pose to be protectin’ Knee High—you know what their code name be for Knee High?”

“No.”

“They call Knee High ‘the cheese,’ what they say to each other. Damn cop code.”